


phoenix; ashes

by Megaparsec (themerrygentleman)



Category: Blaseball (Video Game)
Genre: Blaseball is a horror game, Gen, Grief/Mourning, Houston Spies (Blaseball Team), Norris Firestar
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-03-12
Updated: 2021-03-12
Packaged: 2021-03-19 07:42:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,896
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29996130
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/themerrygentleman/pseuds/Megaparsec
Summary: In the aftermath of Theodore Holloway's incineration, Fitzgerald Blackburn helps newcomer Norris Firestar adjust to their place on the team.
Comments: 4
Kudos: 14





	phoenix; ashes

Here is what the Spies’ official after-action report has to say:

Theodore “Teddy” Holloway, a trusted agent and a charter member of the Houston Spies blaseball team, was incinerated by a rogue Umpire on day 77 of season 13, in the bottom of the second inning of a game against the Miami Dale. Holloway was replaced by new Agent and lineup player Norris Firestar. Sensitive communiqués have been dispatched to all relevant parties, and in keeping with the Spies’ traditional protocol, Holloway has been formally designated Missing in Action. The Spies mourn the loss, but acknowledge that as always, even in the face of tragedy, play must continue. And so must the Plan.

As usual, it says everything and nothing.

* * *

Here is what the Spies’ official after-action report doesn’t say:

In the mazelike brutalist halls of an undisclosed location, Spies mourn. Few words are spoken, but shock and grief seem to blanket the whole of the place, hanging heavy and suffocating in the air like so much lunar dust.

Alex Rosales balances a heavy-looking sword on their knee and stares into their own warped reflection in its blade, scowling like thunder. Knight Triumphant paces the corridors, restless and distraught, the distant echo of armored footfalls the only signal of their presence. Faceless Reese Clark, recent survivor of another attempted incineration, is so still and silent that they could almost mistaken for a mannequin, if not for the smoke still curling from their shoulders and the rage and sorrow bound up in every inch of their posture. In the kitchens, Malik Romayne is hard at work preparing simple, nutritious meals for xyr fellow Spies, knowing that right now, the last thing any of them are thinking about is taking care of themselves.

In a spacious, anonymously decorated common area, brand-new Spy Norris Firestar paces, and doesn’t know what to do.

Norris supposes that their teammates have been welcoming enough, as it goes. Perfunctory but thorough greetings have been exchanged, a briefing packet supplied. But none of the Spies were ever quite willing to meet Norris’ eyes.

Jordan Hildebert, at least, had taken some time to give Norris a tour of all the parts of An Undisclosed Location that they had the security clearance to view. At the end of the tour, Jordan had stood in this common room under the buzz of the fluorescents, uncomfortably shifting their weight from one foot to the other, then raised a fist to their security-camera head’s front lens and given an uncomfortable metallic cough.

“Listen, kid,” Jordan had said, in their strange century-old accent that seemed to echo from someplace far away. “Don’t take it too personal if it seems like your new teammates are givin’ you the cold shoulder for a bit, all right? They’re not much for bumpin’ gums at the best of times, and they’ll need some time to deal with the shock. But you seem like a decent bird, and they’ll come around in the end.”

It didn’t help, exactly, but it meant something that Jordan was trying. Norris had nodded and mumbled something indistinct in response, and Jordan took their leave shortly after.

Now, Norris Firestar is alone.

The common room is surprisingly spacious and high-ceilinged, offering plenty of space to fly in, but Norris has never felt more like gravity is pinning them down. On one level, they want to be excited about the start of their blaseball career. A chance to join the living world, to truly make something of themself. It should have meant everything.

On the other hand, there’s the look in all of their new teammates’ eyes, an expression that conveys more truth than a hundred coded dossiers ever could. It says that Norris Firestar will never be anything but an interloper, an unwelcome interruption of the empty space that should have had Teddy Holloway in it. It’s been less than a day, but that condemnation has been echoing loudly enough in the silence that Norris is already starting to believe it.

Maybe it’s best for everyone if they avoid the others for a little while. It’s not like they aren’t used to being alone.

But ever since arriving at Spies HQ, Norris hasn’t been able to feel completely alone, as much as they’ve wanted to. They’ve had a persistent feeling of eyes on the back of their head – a sense of being watched. It’s still there now.

Norris surveys the room – then stumbles backward with a hastily stifled squawk of surprise.

On the exposed brick wall on one side of the common area, there is a tall humanoid shadow with no one casting it.

The shadow tilts its smoky head, watching Norris watching it, then peels itself off the wall and strides into the middle of the room.

“I wanted to make sure you were all right.” The voice is deep, rich, and quiet, like the muttering crackle of a campfire burning low. “This must be a strange situation for you. You’ll have to forgive the others – they’re in no fit state to give you a proper welcome right now, I’m afraid.”

Belatedly, the pieces fall into place in Norris’ tired brain. This must be the only member of the active Spies roster they haven’t been formally introduced to yet: star batter Fitzgerald Blackburn.

Norris tries not to be intimidated, but the circumstances make that challenging. Their tongue doesn’t seem to work the first few times they try to respond. Fitz waits and watches with patient indifference.

“I—thanks,” Norris finally manages. “Honestly, it’s been fine.”

Fitz can somehow make standing in complete silence look skeptical. Norris coughs and looks the other way. “Okay, I mean, it’s been kind of weird,” they admit. “Considering. But, I mean, it’s not like I have anything to complain about, comparatively speaking.”

A surge of guilt flickers through them, a quiet echo of the flames of incineration. “I mean, uh, I know they’ll need some time to deal with. Everything. You knew Theo—Agent Holloway, didn’t you?”

“Quite well,” Fitz agrees, and is silent for a small, contemplative moment. “You’re correct about the team. However. The fact that your situation is different from theirs makes it no less worthy of consideration. You have something on your mind.”

“Seriously, it’s not worth it,” Norris mumbles, and the guilt flickers higher. Norris doesn’t understand why Fitz is being so excruciatingly _patient._ They don’t seem like the type to shout or throw things, but they’d be well within their rights to melt back into the shadows and disappear, refusing to give this gaudy newcomer the time of day. Norris _Firestar_ – even their name sounds like an insult, one last cruel twist of the knife.

“I don’t know why you—” they start to say, then fall silent again, not knowing how to end the sentence.

“Agent Triumphant,” says Fitz, a hint of wry fondness entering their tone, “has been making an effort to remind us of the importance of team cohesion and intra-agency morale. For my part, I’m a Spy first and foremost: I’ve heard plenty of secrets. One more will not trouble me.”

“I don’t know how I’m supposed to be okay with this,” Norris spits out before they can stop themself. They risk a furtive glance back at Fitz, but the shadowy agent is undisturbed, patiently waiting for them to continue.

“I _know_ the rest of the team have perfectly good reasons to feel the way they do,” Norris continues, staring at the carpet. There’s a complex geometric pattern worked into it that never quite seems to repeat. It’s probably a secret code. “I wouldn’t ask them to feel any different. But I don’t know how I can walk out onto that field and play blaseball every day, knowing everyone else is just going to be wondering the whole time why I’m there and Teddy’s not. Like I’m just some kind of – unwelcome replacement for the person they actually care about. I’d fix this if I knew how, but…”

They almost choke on the next words. “ _I’m_ here now, and I’m _alive,_ but for a reason I can’t control it’s like that doesn’t even matter. Do you have any idea what that’s like?”

“I might have some experience,” Fitz says softly.

They stretch out a hand, their movements slow and deliberate. Waves of darkness roll off of it, fading into the air – smoke, or shadow, or whatever it is Fitz is made of.

“Blackburn,” Fitz says. “It’s not an arbitrary codename, you know.”

Norris looks at them, _really_ looks, for the first time. Upon closer inspection, Fitzgerald Blackburn isn’t just a living shadow. They’re something far deeper and more complex, something that conjures up a host of too-recent memories still seared into Norris’ mind. A person-shaped silhouette scorched into a wall. The lingering, deathly smoke of an incineration. The darkness that lurks, patient and endless, just below the bright surface of life.

Fitz watches Norris come to this conclusion, then inclines their head ever so slightly. “I’ll spare you the details – which are, at any rate, classified at the highest level. Suffice it to say, you’re not the only one here whose current life was born in the aftermath of flame.”

Norris finds they can’t look at Fitz anymore. Their voice cracks traitorously. “How do you stand it?”

“Being a blaseball player,” Fitz says, “means fighting to assert your own life in a chaotic universe, while constantly aware that you stand in the long shadow of annihilation. If you were of a cynical disposition” – here they pause, something in their bearing taking on that subtly ironic cast again – “you might say that the same applies to being alive at all. Nothing can erase that fact, or make it less of a weight to bear. But it is possible, sometimes, to coexist with it.”

“How?”

“Time,” Fitz says after a moment. “And a healthy level of trust that it’s all part of the Plan.”

It feels faintly embarrassing to ask the obvious question, but Norris can tell that Fitz is waiting for it. “What _is_ the Plan?”

“The details are classified,” Fitz replies drily. “But for now, we know enough to be getting on with.”

On a logical level, that sounds faintly absurd, but Norris finds their eyes stinging with the threat of tears all the same. They don’t know if they could say exactly why.

“I’m sorry,” they start to say. “For—”

Fitz waves it away. “Agent Firestar, you’re not a burden. Don’t think of yourself as one. If I have any advice to give, let it be that. And at any rate you’ve given me cause to remind myself of all this, at a time when I needed to remember it, and for that I thank you.”

They turn to leave, then pause, looking back over their shadowy shoulder at where Norris is waiting. “If you haven’t figured it out yet,” they say, “the key to the cipher for the messages on the rec room bulletin board is ‘Spies Win.’”

Then Fitz melts back into the shadows, and is gone.

Norris Firestar stays in the empty room for a while longer, listening to the silence in a space that, for the first time, no longer feels haunted by the scent of smoke and the feeling of someone watching.

Then they get up and head to batting practice, and life – as it tends to – goes on.

**Author's Note:**

> Blaseball has completely taken over my brain in the past couple of months, so of course it was only a matter of time before I started writing fic for it. The incineration of the Spies' beloved Teddy Holloway turned out to be the catalyst I needed, so I hope you've enjoyed my signature brand of Characters Talking About Their Feelings.
> 
> We on the Spies are still fine-tuning Norris Firestar's characterization, but the consensus seems to be drifting toward the idea that they're some sort of giant bird (possibly with some phoenix elements, to go with the name), so that's what I went with. Fitz, meanwhile, has always been a favorite of mine, so hopefully I did justice to their voice. I've always been a fan of the headcanon that they're the living aftermath of an incineration, and it created some great parallels with Firestar's whole thing that I just had to explore.
> 
> The Commissioner is doing a great job.
> 
> UPDATE, less than four hours after posting: well nuts, RIV. Time to write a follow-up where Fitz has to do this Again, I guess.


End file.
